You take me to McDonald’s every Sunday morning after we see all the babies. I feel so special that my 6-year-old self gets to accompany my dad to the nursery on the floor with all the new moms and the brand new babies. There are balloons on doors and pink and blue teddy bears and flowers and everything smells like disinfectant and talcum powder and something sweet. The room with the babies is so loud, but I love that I get to go in there with you and I walk next to you and look at the pink faces and the wrinkly little new bodies and the heads of hair. I get the giggles when you act silly and talk to the babies in funny voices. My hair is in pigtails and I have on my favorite pink and white striped overalls and I beam when my dad introduces me to the nurses. I think he’s probably the most important doctor in that hospital, right? And then it’s McDonalds and my knee socked legs swing in the booth and I talk with my mouth full of pancakes and syrup and hash browns. I don’t remember what we talk about, but it’s my day and you’re my dad.

You throw sand to the side with a giant bucket as I wait with impatience for the hole to be completed. My brother keeps getting into the hole even though it’s not ready and I try not to react when the sides cave in. My dad keeps scooping and scooping and the hole gets deeper and deeper until I know that I will completely disappear once I jump inside. He is the best hole digger on the entire beach and my 9-year-old self knows that the other kids are probably jealous. I laugh with excitement even though I expected it when the waves rush into the hole and suddenly we have a beach pool. My brother asks to be buried in the hole and then we all rush into the water to rinse the sand from all the cracks. You swim out past the waves and I watch your figure get smaller and smaller. You always comes back because you’re my dad.

You sit calmly in the passenger seat of our blue Volvo sedan and tell me to turn right. I circle around and try to drive straight in the empty church parking lot because my 15-year-old self wants to do it right since it’s the first time behind the wheel. You don’t react when I hit the brakes too hard and we jerk forward. You make some jokes about my driving ability and we start all over again. I try to park and drive over the white lines of the spot and then drive around again to make it straight. I don’t know how to do reverse, yet, so I need to go all the way around again to get back to my parking spot. Around and around I go. I drive from the front of the parking lot to the back and you’re not bored because you sing Broadway songs, yelling, “Oklahoma!” Out the window since you know it’s my favorite musical. I accelerate from 10 mph to 25 mph from one end of the parking lot to the other and I know I’m going to be the best driver when I get my license in 6 months. It’s a big milestone and I know that you’re a good teacher and I’m driving the car for the first time with my dad.

You get ready to walk me down the aisle and I know you remember all my warnings because you hold in your tears. I don’t make eye contact with you because I know they will start and maybe mine will too. My satin ball gown of a wedding dress is huge but you’re careful not to step on it.  We hear the music playing behind the double doors of the ceremony and the sun is right in our eyes as it comes through the windows of the small art museum, which I love is my wedding venue. The wedding planner gives the signal that it’s time and I take a deep breath and thread my arm through yours, careful not to drop my bouquet of purple and lavender tulips. I hear the theme song from “Romeo and Juliet” playing on the harp and I finally turn to smile at you. Your mustached mouth wiggles a little and I know you’re about to lose it, so I turn away and take the first step as the doors open and all of our friends and family stand up and turn towards us. I’m 28 and I’m walking to my future husband and my eyes are teary and you’re right by my side because you’re my dad.

You aren’t talking to anyone except the receptionist at the cancer center and you’re speaking in a strict firm voice. Your doctor voice. I’m holding my mom’s hand and rubbing the side of my breast with the other hand because it really hurts after the biopsy the day before. We know the results will be positive, so my dad is using his doctor street cred to get me into an appointment with the best oncologist at the hospital. You aren’t smiling or being reassuring. You’re serious and saying we need an appointment in the next week or so to determine surgery options and most likely further treatment like chemotherapy. I’m scared and I have been married only 10 weeks and breast cancer isn’t supposed to happen to 28-year-olds. My mom is being brave and reminding me we don’t worry until it’s time to worry. I can’t tell if you’re worrying because you’ve haven’t really talked to me since the day I found the lump. Just quiet and I know you’re so incredibly sad. We all are. I crack jokes, but they don’t really land. You get off the phone and smile slightly and let us know we have our appointment and this oncologist is one of the best. I can’t imagine what you feel like. You’re my dad and I have breast cancer.

You have on a bright blue shirt and so does Mom and you are already crying as we walk towards you with our brand new baby boy. We have just come off the plane from Texas after adopting our firstborn son and I can’t believe it’s been 6 years since I went through every possible treatment of breast cancer. I am 33 now and I never thought I would get to be a mother after all the chemotherapy, but we figured out different options and we are now officially parents. You and Mom have on blue shirts to celebrate our son. You can’t even put words together when you come over and peek into the infant carrier where our 2-week-old baby is sleeping after a long plane ride. You comment on how beautiful he is and you can’t believe you’re finally a grandfather and you’re blubbering and talking in a high voice because the excitement is overwhelming to all of us. We all beam at each other and at the small like face that has been added to our family. You’re my dad and you’re now a grandfather.

You’re crying again because my 8 pound baby boy has just been delivered and you are now a grandfather for the second time. We never expected a pregnancy after my breast cancer, but my husband and I had luck on our side and now a baby is joining our 2-year-old son. Sometimes wishes that weren’t expected are granted and my 36-year-old self is still floored we are now a family of four. I’m exhausted from a day and a half of labor, but I still keep my eyes open to look at you and Mom and your gigantic smiles. Your voice is the same as the day we came home from Texas and you tell me how beautiful he is just like you did then. You take my dinner order and scoot out the door to the local diner because everyone knows I’m craving a gigantic turkey club post delivery. You take our toddler with you by the hand and he’s wearing his “I’m the big brother” t shirt proudly. I go to sleep but hear you and Mom laughing with him and know I’m so lucky because you’re my dad keeping my son happy and you know I need that sandwich.

You’re quiet and looking at the steering wheel as we sit in the car near the grocery store parking lot. I ask you if you want to live with me after we lose Mom and you’re crying. She has had lung cancer for only 4 months, but we know the end is approaching because she’s sleeping all the time and on such high oxygen flow in the hospital and there is no longer hope. We have spent the last 2 months eating grilled cheese sandwiches in the hospital cafeteria and watching the most important person in our lives slowly disappear and deteriorate from stage 4 lung cancer. You tell me you don’t want to live with me because you know I have my own life and you will need to figure things out. I ask if you want me to call the funeral home and get information and you nod. You tell me you would like me to write her obituary and read an eulogy and I nod because I knew those jobs would be mine. We sit quietly together because neither one of us want to go back to the hospital, but know that time is almost over. I’m 41 and my mom is dying  and I can’t breathe and I’m just grateful I still have my dad.

You sit across from me outside on our deck and you look sheepish. It’s been 9 months since my mom died and we have survived the best way we can. The best way we had to. You take a deep breath and tell me you have rekindled your relationship with an old college girlfriend and you are happy and in love. I try not to scream and I try to just listen, but I’m having a very hard time understanding the words. You were married to my mom for 44 years, so I can’t figure out how there is a new love in your life. It doesn’t make sense, but I say I am happy for you because that’s the role of the good daughter especially the good daughter of a widower father. You say you can’t wait for me to meet her and you promise you won’t let anything change. You tell me you will always honor my mom’s memory, but you just didn’t want to be alone anymore and you wanted to live the rest of your years with happiness. You tell me your new girlfriend makes you happy and want to live again. I look up at the trees and wonder if my mom is hearing all this somewhere above my head. My mom is gone, I have one parent, and suddenly you’re my dad with a girlfriend.

You and I haven’t talked in almost a year. It has been almost 5 years since my mom died and almost 4 years since you met your new wife and almost 3 years since your wedding.  My brother and I wasn’t invited. You haven’t understood the enormity of your new marriage in my life or my brother’s life and how that hit our grief. That we were happy for you finding a new relationship, but hurt because you never even asked us how we felt about you getting remarried. You just did it. You have taken down all the pictures of Mom and put them in a box in the garage. You are renovating the house that you lived in with her and there is no remaining trace of her. You spend all your time with your wife’s family and you are a silly happy grandfather in all pictures with her sons and her grandchildren. My boys are 12 and 10 and they ask why they don’t see you. They don’t understand that for 3 years you have done nothing but get mad at me for the smallest infractions. That you told me I couldn’t visit at times because it wasn’t a good weekend for your wife. That you came to my town, but didn’t tell me because you were on a trip with your wife and had plans. The boys don’t know that you didn’t even text me on my birthday because you were mad at me for the millionth time. That you’re always mad at me. That you told me your wife was the most important person to you and noted even more than me and my brother and your grandchildren. You have only visited 4 times since you got remarried and you barely talked to any of us outside of your wife when you were here. There’s distance and silence and anger and disappointment and none of this makes sense. I struggle weekly in my conversations with my therapist wondering if this is who you always were or just a new person post my mom. I wonder what my mom thinks. If she knows or can see. That I am alone. That everything changed. That the relationship of you and my husband and you and my kids and you and my brother have all crumbled and broken. I think back to our McDonald’s breakfast 39 years ago and I can’t believe you were that person. I knew you and maybe I never knew you. Maybe grief changed you. Maybe this is who you were. All my memories are fuzzy and blurred. Because I know the only way I can live with some peace in my life is to no longer have a relationship with you as my dad.